Happy Thanksgiving!

So more than a week has gone by since the last post. In that time there was another playtest, and yet again I failed to have a camera, meaning the pictures are with someone else. Seems like this is a good indication of what I need for Christmas.

Either way, the playtesting has really moved the game along, and I can say confidently that Alex and I are done with the rules, meaning all that stands between us and publishing is a bit of art. Speaking of which…

So this is almost certainly the final board. The colors, which I had just thrown together before, have now been expertly designed by a mutual friend of Alex and I, so they actually look nice. Very nice I would say. He also scaled the patterns so that they flow from the center out. I’m not sure what he’s talking about, but with results like this I’m not going to argue. I also worked on a few other art pieces for this game, most importantly the two decks of cards.

So yeah, those are nice. Notice that the colors are also really great. I was given a whole palette of colors, so I couldn’t screw it up if I wanted to. I’m not sure if I’ve ever mentioned the actually workings of Shima, but there are special workers, know as “Tomodachi” that you can hire to improve your farm, and there are boats that you can sell your goods to. Nothing revolutionary game-wise, but we tried to make the quirks in both cards interesting and unique. Fun Fact: the geisha card above used to be “The Shogun,” but we decided it was too harsh thematically, and in a game with so many stereo-typically Japanese things we thought it would be a shame not to include a geisha.

So that’s the current situation. I have vowed to myself repeatedly that I will get on a more regular update schedule, so perhaps there will be another post in a few days. Or a week. Don’t hold your breath.